NewHavenBIZ

50 n e w h a v e n B I Z | M a y / J u n e 2 0 1 9 | n e w h a v e n b i z . c o m T H E L O O P He wrote the book on New Haven apizza By Michael C. Bingham A R C H I V E "W e have a special food," says Colin Caplan. "We have a special name for it, and it's cooked a certain way." at would be apizza — food of the gods. "When people think of New Haven today they think of this phenomenal city for pizza — 'Oh, Sally's, Pepe's and Modern — it's the best in the world.'" But how exactly did that happen? How New Haven came to have its own distinctive species of the humble tomato pie lies at the intersection of history, demography, economics, social studies — even agriculture. So says native New Havener Ca- plan, a many-hatted entrepreneur and author, most recently of Pizza in New Haven (America rough Time, $30). e project was born of Caplan's interest in history, in particular the history of Italian emigration to the City of Elms. A century ago New Haven had more recent Italian immigrants per capita than any other U.S city, Caplan says. In 1910, fully 10 percent of the city's population had been born in Italy and came here in search of economic opportunity. ey found it, going to work in factories, quarries, railroads and, in prodigious numbers, bakeries by the dozens — along Grand Avenue, Wooster Square, Oak Street and the Hill. "New Haven's Italian bakers filled the city with the aroma of fresh baked bread and pizza," Ca- plan writes. And a particular variety of flat bread, with tomato sauce on it, came to be known as apizza. Many of them traced their origins to Naples, Campagna and the Amalfi coast, and they were crowded into a tiny geograph- ic footprint in and around the present-day Wooster Square, which reinforced shared cultural markers such as thin-crusted tomato pies. Other ethnic groups living cheek- by-jowl with the Italian immigrants soon "learned that this Italian food that they called 'apizza' was the best food they'd ever had," Caplan says. Following World War I and the years that followed, Caplan says, "ere were literally hundreds of pizzerias in New Haven that don't exist anymore." Redevelopment in the 1950s and '60s eviscerated those neighbor- hoods and the businesses that had thrived there for decades — in- cluding pizzerias, dozens of which relocated to suburbs such as West Haven, or simply closed. But at the same time the reputation of the apizza ambrosia was prolifer- ating — in no small part thanks to Yale students who hailed from hither and yon. ese Yalies made Wooster Street their undergrad mecca — and spread the apizza gospel to all corners of the earth aer they graduated and le the Elm City to make their fortunes elsewhere. e "most renowned name asso- ciated with pizza in New Haven has been Frank Pepe," Caplan writes. His "attention to his cra, hard work and ingenuity set him above, beyond and ahead of the others." Pepe's ambition lives on in his heirs, who have "extended the brand" by opening ten Pepe's pizzerias, including in such far-flung outposts as Yonkers, N.Y., Warwick, R.I. and Burlington, Mass. at's in sharp contrast to the Consiglios, of Sally's fame, who eschewed expansion beyond Wooster Street. Sally's namesake Sal Consiglio was Frank Pepe's nephew. Aer his death his widow Flo ran it until she passed away in 2012, when Sally's passed to sons Bobby and Rick, who in 2017 sold out to Lineage Hospitality. Why has New Haven's peculiar brand of apizza never become adulterated — or what mathema- ticians call "reversion to the mean" — the mean being what Caplan calls "the big, floppy slice dripping with cheese" that people associate with New York City? "Family traditions helped New Haven keep it pure," says Caplan. "Pepe's, Sally's have longevity, connectivity to the people who ran them [almost] 100 years ago." It is that tradition and longevity that, Caplan writes, are "the true testament to New Haven pizza: It is about making people happy, feeding people's desire to find something they feel is theirs and, most impor- tantly, connecting people together from all walks of life." n Apizza (pronounced ah-BEETZ) is the food for first dates and it would be my choice for a last meal.

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